System 91 (2020) 102261

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journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/system

EFL learners’ lexical availability: Exploring frequency,

exposure, and vocabulary level
Is’haaq Akbarian a, *, Fatemeh Farajollahi a, Rosa María Jime

nez Catala

n b
a
University of Qom, Qom, Iran
b
University of La Rioja, Spain

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Lexical availability studies have a great potential to explore and contribute to a better
Received 2 May 2019 understanding of productive vocabulary knowledge in a second or foreign language. The
Received in revised form 25 February 2020 present study compared the lexical availability output of two groups of EFL learners in
Accepted 6 April 2020
order to ascertain whether the different prompts used in the lexical availability task or the
Available online 14 April 2020
different amount of English exposure had any quantitative or qualitative effect on learners’
lexical availability output. The study also aimed at determining if there was a relationship
Keywords:
between receptive vocabulary knowledge and lexical availability output. A sample of 85
Lexical availability
Frequency profile
EFL learners, distributed into incoming and outgoing groups, completed a lexical avail-
Vocabulary increase ability task and the New Vocabulary Levels Test (NVLT). Results showed that the prompt
Prompt and the amount of English instruction influenced the number and quality of learners’ word
Controlled productive vocabulary responses. There was also a positive, although moderate, correlation between the scores on
lexical availability task and NVLT, predicting vocabulary level to some extent.
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Vocabulary research in second or foreign languages (L2 or FL) has grown considerably in the last decades, although few
studies have examined productive vocabulary. This gap has been identified by researchers (Fitzpatrick & Clenton, 2017; Horst
& Collins, 2006; Laufer & Nation, 1999; Nation & Meara, 2010; Schmitt, 2008), who have called upon the need to investigate
productive vocabulary. This is understood as the words activated in association to cue words (controlled productive vo-
cabulary), as well as the words learners know at a receptive level and can spontaneously use in different types of discourse
(free productive vocabulary) (Laufer, 1998). Controlled productive vocabulary can be addressed through lexical availability
and word frequency, two different but complementary approaches that can provide fresh insights into the productive vo-
cabulary knowledge of L2 learners. In the former, the reference is the mental lexicon of L2 users whereas, in the latter, the
reference is frequency bands ranked in lists obtained out of L1 written corpora (Jime
nez Catala

n & Fitzpatrick, 2014). This
double approach was applied to the present study in order to examine the vocabulary production and the frequency of the
words activated by EFL learners in a lexical availability task.
Richards and Schmidt (2010) define availability as the first words that come to mind in association to a topic, for example,
water, rice, or bread when talking about ‘Food and drink’. The assumption is that the words elicited by cue words (henceforth,
prompts) in lexical availability tasks constitute the available lexicon, ready to be used when required by the theme and the

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: [email protected] (I. Akbarian).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2020.102261
0346-251X/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
2 I. Akbarian et al. / System 91 (2020) 102261

communicative situation. These tasks are based on the association of prompts to the word responses produced by the in-
formants, which allow exploring the structure of learners’ mental lexicon. In this regard, they are very close to word asso-
ciation tests as both are based on the association of stimuli or prompts and word responses to the prompts (e.g. Fitzpatrick,
2006; Higginbotham, 2010; Nissen; Henriksen, 2006). Lexical availability tasks also provide information on the words known
by EFL learners at subsequent points of time, as well as on the quality of their word knowledge, or the similarities and dif-
ferences in the lexical availability output of learners from different mother tongues and different foreign languages as target
of learning (Mora & Jime
nez Catala 

n, 2019; Sifrar Kalan, 2009, 2014).
Word frequency is defined as the words most likely to be found in different types of discourse (Schmitt, 2010, p. 13).
Regarded as a key dimension in cognitive sciences, word frequency has been shown to affect lexical retrieval. For instance,
several scholars have reported that the words most frequently retrieved in association tasks are those most frequently found
in the target language (Nissen & Henriksen, 2006; Cronin, 2002). The main assumption underlying L2 frequency studies is
that the 1,000 and 2,000 most frequent words are acquired earlier than words within the 3,000, 5,000, and 10,000 most
frequent words in the language, being academic lists the latest to be acquired (see Laufer, 1994; Nation & Waring, 1997). In the
present study, we apply this concept (word frequency) to the classification of learners’ word responses in a lexical availability
task. On the grounds of word frequency studies, we might expect a pattern of most to least frequent words in the words
retrieved by pre-intermediate-level learners, and more infrequent words, by intermediate- or advanced-level ones. However,
it is our contention that other factors might have a bearing on the frequency of word responses in lexical availability pro-
duction. One might be the effect of the prompt, another might be the amount or number of hours of English instruction
received by learners, and still another might be the level of receptive vocabulary knowledge. These factors differ and need to
be examined on its own, since prompts in lexical availability tasks stand for different semantic fields such as ‘Animals’, or
‘Food & Drink’. Research has shown that the theme or topic determines the vocabulary in a text (Jime
nez Catala

n, 2010). It is a
factor of variation on its own. If learners need to talk about a topic such as having a meal at a restaurant, they will have to use
the vocabulary appropriate to the situation, and this necessarily will require vocabulary of ‘food and drink’. Similarly, as we
will see later, lexical availability research has shown variation of word production according to the semantic field of the
prompt. However, we do not know whether this variation will be observed in groups with different amount of English in-
struction. Investigation of this issue is warranted as to clarify whether it is the effect of the prompt or amount of exposure that
influences more on vocabulary production, and specifically, on the increase of infrequent words in the lexical availability
output of EFL learners.
Below, research review on each of these factors (the prompt, amount of instruction, and vocabulary level) shows that their
potential effect in learners’ vocabulary production has either been insufficiently investigated or overlooked in L2 lexical
availability and vocabulary research.
As stated before, this paper postulates that three other less-investigated factors may have an effect on the responses of
language learners to a lexical prompt. These factors are frequency, exposure, and vocabulary level.

1.1. Frequency

Frequency in language can be viewed from an internal and external perspective (Speelman & Kirsner, 2005). Internal
involves the activation of phonological, syntax or lexical patterns in memory and external has to do with the recurrences of
patterns of linguistic variation in oral and written discourse. In this study, we apply this double perspective to the analysis of
EFL learners’ word production. Internal frequency looks at the most frequent words activated in learners’ minds by means of
lexical availability tasks. External frequency is based on ranked levels ranging from most to least frequent words, according to
written or oral corpora (Jime
nez Catala
n & Fitzpatrick, 2014). Regarding internal frequency, lexical availability studies in
English and Spanish have shown that some prompts are more productive than others in the learners’ word responses. For

example, in the study of Sifrar Kalan (2014) on the English and Spanish as foreign languages of Slovene university students,
‘Animals’ was the prompt that generated the highest number of responses, whereas ‘Games and entertainment’ and ‘School’
were the least productive in both foreign languages. ‘Animals’ as one of the most productive prompts was also attested in
many studies on the lexical availability of EFL learners in different courses of primary and secondary education as well as in
courses for seniors at the university (e.g., Agustín & Ferna
ndez, 2014; Gallardo del Puerto & Martínez-Adri
an, 2014; Canga,
2017; Martínez-Adria
n & Gallardo del Puerto, 2016). Similarly, ‘Parts of the body’ was among the most productive prompts
in the lexical availability of university EFL learners of different mother tongues, Chilean Spanish in Ferreira & Echeverría
(2014), and Spanish and Chinese in Martínez-Adria
n and Gallardo del Puerto (2016). Researchers have justified the common
findings on the grounds of the similarity of meaning and form of the prompts in the L1 and L2 (cognateness), word familiarity,
word frequency, or the degree of abstractness of the prompts. For instance, regarding cognateness and word familiarity, the
study conducted by Herna
ndez, Izura, and Tome
(2014) compared the performance of American-English speakers, learners of
Spanish, on four prompts: ‘Animals’, ‘Body parts’, ‘Clothing’, and ‘Furniture’, finding ‘Animals’ and ‘Body parts’, respectively
the most and least productive. ‘Animals’ is a frequent cognate in English and Spanish, and ‘Furniture’ and ‘Clothing’ had been
introduced earlier than ‘Body parts’ in the L2. However, external frequency did not prove to be the most significant factor in
this study as the prompt ‘Body parts’ and the words related to it were rated high in frequency in oral and written databases,
but this prompt was the least productive. This finding keeps resemblance to the ones obtained in written compositions by
Horst and Collins (2006) on primary education in Quebec, who were learners of English in ESL program at 100 and 400 h of
English instruction. The predominant increase occurred in the band of most frequent words rather than in infrequent words.
 I. Akbarian et al. / System 91 (2020) 102261 3

More closely related is the lexical availability study conducted by (Jime
nez Catala
n & Fitzpatrick, 2014). They provided
counter-evidence to the claim that the most frequent words in the target language are acquired earlier than least frequent
words: the words retrieved by their sample of Spanish learners of EFL did not follow the patterns claimed in L2 corpus studies
based on word frequency. Their research was a first step in the analysis of the quality of learners’ word responses in terms of
external frequency in lexical availability studies. However, this study, as most lexical availability studies, was conducted in
Spain with EFL learners at primary or secondary education. We do not know whether the internal patterns of frequency of
word response identified with young learners will also appear in the lexical availability output of adult learners. Likewise,
more research is warranted with EFL learners in other countries, particularly, if learners’ mother tongues differ in origin as it
has been shown that lexical access and retrieval may be determined to some extent by this factor (cf. Martínez-Adria
n;
Gallardo del Puerto, 2016). The present study contributes to L2 lexical availability as well as to vocabulary research by
exploring the word frequency profile of the words generated in a lexical availability task by two groups of Iranian EFL learners
at different amount of English instruction at university.

1.2. Exposure

The exposure to foreign languages has been investigated from different stances, such as the amount of language in-
struction, the quality of language exposure (authentic versus non-authentic) or the type of instruction (CLIL versus regular

nez Catala
instruction, intensive versus distributed practice) (Gilmore, 2007; Jime
n & Fitzpatrick, 2014; Lasagabaster & Lo

pez
Belloqui, 2015). One factor insufficiently investigated so far is whether an increase in the number of hours of instruction will
correspond with an augment in the number and quality of the words EFL learners can produce in lexical availability tasks. One
argument for the need to investigate this issue is that vocabulary knowledge has shown to be a predictor of success in L2
achievement as well as in L2 communication (Koizumi & In’nami, 2013) and contributes to developing all language skills
(Akbarian, 2018; Akbarian & Alavi, 2013). Another is that the number of words EFL learners retrieve in response to prompts
related to everyday issues has been shown to correlate with their productive vocabulary knowledge (see Jime
nez Catal
an,
2010). However, these studies were conducted with learners in secondary and primary education. It is unclear whether
the same results will be obtained with EFL learners in tertiary education. We do not know either whether lexical availability
production may be influenced by the amount of language instruction received by learners. There are few studies on the effect
of the number of hours of instruction on EFL productive vocabulary, and most refer to years of schooling rather than to the
number of hours of instruction; however, there is some evidence of its positive influence on word association studies. El-
Dakhs (2017, p. 1033) found a “strong influence for language exposure and word characteristics on the learners’ associa-
tions.” His study also provided evidence of the developmental nature of learners’ lexicon, since an increase of language
exposure correlated with an increase in vocabulary knowledge, higher word connectivity and more native-like word asso-
ciations. Similarly, in a longitudinal study on the productive vocabulary and word associations of Spanish EFL learners with
different amount of instruction, Moreno Espinosa (2009) reported an increase in the number of words associated by learners
to prompts in the Lex30 test (Meara & Fitzpatrick, 2000). However, the patterns of word association remained stable
throughout the three years under examination.
Therefore, there is a need to understand whether the amount of English instruction leads to different lexical availability
output and whether it influences the development of the lexicon for EFL learners. An increase in the quantity and change in
the quality of the words retrieved by EFL learners in the lexical availability task may be considered an indication of higher
vocabulary level and language proficiency as well as more word connectivity in the structure of learners’ mental lexicon.

1.3. Vocabulary level

There are numerous studies on the receptive vocabulary of EFL learners in primary, secondary, and tertiary education. The
majority has concentrated on the identification of vocabulary knowledge in terms of word frequency by means of successive
versions of Vocabulary Levels Test (Nation, 1983; Schmitt, Schmitt, & Clapham, 2001; Webb, Sasao, & Balance, 2017). In
comparison, research on the productive vocabulary level of EFL learners is scarce (Schmitt, 2010) and disperse concerning the
measurement instruments used.
In addition to identifying learners’ vocabulary knowledge in terms of word frequency, the investigation of the relationship
between receptive and productive vocabulary level has been another concern in L2 vocabulary research (e.g. Shin, Chon, &
Kim, 2011; Webb, 2008). In this regard, many of the studies have shown a close relationship between both dimensions.
However, most relationships have been based on the receptive and productive versions of the VLT; few studies have con-
ducted correlations on other types of test.
As mentioned above, the main assumption in word frequency studies is that the words in the most frequent bands are
acquired earlier than the words in the least frequent bands and tested as such based on vocabulary frequency levels. We might
expect then that learners of different receptive vocabulary levels will present that pattern in the lexical availability output.
Therefore, the present study explores new avenues by trying to ascertain whether there is relationship between the New
Vocabulary Levels Test (NVLT) (McLean & Kramer, 2015) and a lexical availability task. Should we find a positive relationship
in the present study, the implications would be that the lexical availability task might serve to predict EFL learners’ vocabulary
level.
4 I. Akbarian et al. / System 91 (2020) 102261

1.4. Research questions (RQs)

1. To what extent do the different prompts in the lexical availability task elicit the same or different number of word
responses?
2. To what extent does EFL learners’ lexical availability output increase as the amount of English instruction increases?
3. To what extent does the frequency profile of EFL learners’ word responses change as the amount of English instruction
increases?
4. Are there similarities or differences in the five top word responses associated to prompts at different amount of English
instruction?
5. Is there a relationship between receptive vocabulary knowledge as measured by the NVLT and the lexical availability
output of EFL learners?

2. Method

2.1. Participants

The participants, selected through convenience sampling, included 85 EFL learners (39 males and 46 females, aged 18e25
years) from two Iranian comprehensive state universities. All the participants speak Persian language. The incoming group
(n ¼ 54) included second-semester students, whereas the outgoing group (n ¼ 31) included sixth-semester students. In Iran,
university students pass 135 course units to obtain the BA degree in English literature. EFL students work on general English
(41 units) mainly in the first three semesters. They then proceed to subject courses (76 units) offered in English. In the
meantime, they also receive other non-English courses (18 units) in Persian.
The incoming group has passed or already taken course units on general English and received 360 h of formal English
instruction, whereas the outgoing group has passed both general English (700 h of instruction) and subject courses in English
(560 h) up until the time of data gathering. They experience intensive attention to the different dimensions of vocabulary
knowledge as postulated by Nation (2001) in the first two semesters. We collected our cross-sectional data from these two
different groups in spring 2017.

3. Instruments for data collection

3.1. Selection criteria

A Lexical availability task and a vocabulary test were the two data collection instruments used in the present study. The
selection was done taking into consideration the possibility of addressing frequency from the double perspective mentioned
earlier. Three well-known tests to investigate word frequency from an external perspective are Lexical Frequency Profile (LFP)
(Laufer & Nation, 1995), the Productive Vocabulary Levels Test (PVLT) (Nation, 1983), or Lex30 (Meara & Fitzpatrick, 2000).
Lex30 differs from LFP and PVLT in the use of prompts to activate learners’ word responses. In this respect, Lex30 is more
closely related to the lexical availability task, as both include prompts to trigger word responses to investigate the structure of
the learners’ mental lexicon. However, there are important differences between them, as the lexical availability task does not
restrict the number of word responses, and it is not based on external frequency bands, but on the words retrieved by learners
in response to prompts standing for semantic fields or centers of interest related to daily life such as ‘professions’ or ‘hobbies’.
These form part of the vocabulary input of ELT textbooks, and this fact, together with the possibility of comparing results with
research conducted with the same prompts and methodology in other countries may help us come to a broader under-
standing of EFL learners’ available lexicon.

3.2. Lexical availability task

The format of this instrument was designed by the researchers. The task consisted of 10 prompts related to daily topics.
These were: (1) ‘Parts of the body’, (2) ‘Clothes’, (3) ‘Parts of the house’, (4) ‘Food and drink’, (5) ‘School’, (6) ‘The city’, (7)
‘Countryside’, (8) ‘Means of transportation’, (9) ‘Animals’, and (10) ‘Colors’. Students were asked to write as many words as

Fig. 1. Example of the layout for prompts in the lexical availability task.
 I. Akbarian et al. / System 91 (2020) 102261 5

came to their mind in 2 min per prompt. To control for the order of the responses, students were provided with a sheet
containing dotted spaces listed from 1 to 20 (Fig. 1).
These prompts provide a reference for comparison as they have been traditionally used in lexical availability studies with
EFL learners in different countries (see Jime
nez Catala
n, 2014). For validation purposes, the prompts used in the studies
reported in the edited collection above were presented to 20 students with similar characteristics in the sample of informants
in the present study. They were asked to rate their familiarity with each of the words and their preference to write a
composition on them. In addition, we checked for the presence of these prompts in the English textbooks at initial and in-
termediate levels. The 10 selected prompts imposed no serious limitations on the linguistic knowledge of both groups. It is
logical to assume that the groups had sufficient world knowledge about the semantic fields represented by the prompts as to
retrieve the related words.

nez Catala
There is evidence in favor of the objectiveness and validity of the lexical availability task (Jime
n, 2014). As the
exploratory studies, explained in Samper Herna
ndez and Jime
nez Catala

n (2014), were conducted independently of one
another, but not as part of a planned series of investigations to (dis)approve their validity.

3.3. New Vocabulary Levels Test (NVLT)

Designed by McLean and Kramer (2015), the NVLT is a breadth, discrete, selective, completion, and content-dependent
test. It assesses the receptive vocabulary size and proficiency level at the first five 1,000-word frequency levels of the BNC
and academic vocabulary (Coxhead, 2000). It contains five 24-item levels, estimating the most frequent 5,000-word families,
along with a 30-item section, measuring knowledge of the AWL. One point goes to each correct answer (the closest meaning
to the word marked in bold), chosen by the participants (see Fig. 2 for an example).
We selected the NVLT due to its potential as a diagnostic and achievement instrument. The test utilizes a multiple-choice
format and is appropriate for separating students with a wide range of proficiency (McLean & Kramer, 2015). Several studies
have provided evidence in favor of the objectiveness and reliability of the NVLT (see Hsu, 2018; Laufer; Aviad-Levitzky, 2017;
Laufer & McLean, 2016).

3.4. The range program

For each word, the Range program gives a range or distribution figure (i.e., how many texts words occur in), a headword
frequency figure (how many times the actual headword type appears in all the texts). We chose to process the data through
the Range program because it compares the vocabulary of up to 32 different texts simultaneously. It can compare a text
against vocabulary lists to check which words in the text can or cannot be found in the lists, and, also, the vocabulary of two
texts to detect how much of the same vocabulary they use and where their vocabulary differs (Heatley, Nation, & Coxhead,
2002). It can thus meet the need of using a frequency program that analyses texts in a lexical availability study that only
includes lists of words.

3.5. Procedures

Permissions to data collection were obtained from the graduate office of the two universities as well as from the par-
ticipants. We also informed them of the purpose of the study and ensured that the results would not affect their final scores.
Test administration happened in two separate sessions; the participants received the NVLT, a receptive measure, in the first
and the lexical availability task, a productive measure, in the second session. The same conditions were kept for the incoming
and outgoing group.
We applied counterbalancing in administering the prompts. The participants received all the 10 prompts or semantic
categories randomly to warrant that the order of the prompts was different for each student and to ensure the attentiveness of
the participants to all the prompts, not just to the first and to the tenth prompt. Our decision was based on the evidence found
in semantic memory research, where it has been reported that humans tend to pay more attention to the beginning or the
final of an event or a text rather than to what is in the middle (Krueger & Salthouse, 2011). Upon receiving the task, the
participants read each prompt, appearing on top of a different page, and then wrote as many words as they could associate to
it within 2 min, and stopped writing when we said ‘stop’, then turned to the next page, and so on. The participants repeated
the same procedures for all the prompts. When the test was over, they were not allowed to add new words to any of the
categories. The test with 10 prompts took around 20 min, 2 min per prompt.

Fig. 2. A sample of the NVLT.

6 I. Akbarian et al. / System 91 (2020) 102261

nez Catala
The researchers edited word responses, adopting the same criteria as in Jime
n (2014) that include correcting
spelling mistakes, counting repeated words only once per prompt, discarding unintelligible or Persian words, and others
where necessary. We then processed the texts to the Range program to get a frequency list.

3.6. Data analysis

The responses were fed into the Range program to identify the number of words elicited by each prompt, the number of
participants who retrieved each word, and the frequency of the words within each prompt. Range provided us with the lexical
frequency profile of each group of informants according to external frequency (i.e., ranked level based on word frequency, see
the section on frequency above) as well as with the frequency list and rank of the words produced by EFL learners. To answer
RQ1, we computed the median, mean, and standard deviation of each prompt. An independent samples t-test was conducted
to determine the significance of the results to answer RQ2 and RQ3, while assuming equal variances for all the categories,
except for ‘The city’ (p ¼ .001) and ‘Colors’ (p ¼ .003) for which variances were not assumed equal. Therefore, we checked the
second row of our calculation for these two categories. For RQ4, we compared the frequency of the most-often-cited words in
each prompt. To answer RQ5, a Pearson product-moment correlation was run to determine whether there was a relationship
between the scores on the NVLT and the productive measure.

4. Results

The first research question aimed to ascertain whether the different prompts in the lexical availability task would elicit the
same or different number of responses from the EFL learners. To answer this research question, we considered the whole
sample of informants. The focus here was on internal frequency as observed by most and least productive prompts in the
lexical availability task. We obtained the means and medians for each prompt based on the individual number of words
produced by each student. The descriptive statistics displayed in Table 1 indicate the existence of differences across prompts
though the responses are almost evenly distributed based on their respective means and medians.
As can be observed in Table 1, column two from the left, the highest lexical output was produced for ‘Parts of the body’,
‘Animals’, and ‘School’. The second most productive prompts were ‘Parts of the house’, ‘Clothes’, and ‘Food and drink’, and the
third most productive prompts were ‘City’ and ‘Colors’. The lowest number of responses were elicited by ‘Means of trans-
portation’ and ‘Countryside’.
To check for significant differences across the prompts, a one-way repeated measures ANOVA was conducted to compare
the number of words elicited by the 10 prompts above. There was a significant effect for prompt, Wilks’ Lambda ¼ 0.26, F (9,
76) ¼ 24.58, p < .001, multivariate partial eta squared ¼ 0.74.
In response to the reviewers’ suggestion, we also analyzed the distribution of the words related to the prompts in the top
2,000 most frequent words (K1 and K2). The data, distributed on K1 and K2, do not seem to show a similar pattern of dif-
ference across the prompts, except for some. As the third column from the right (Table 1) shows, the highest lexical output in
terms of the top 2,000 most frequent words was for ‘Parts of the body’, ‘School’, ‘Parts of the house’ (the fourth in the previous
analysis on the distribution of words across prompts). ‘Animals’, which was the second most productive word in the previous
analysis, does not follow a similar pattern in the distribution of the words related to the prompts in K1 and K2. The second
most productive prompts in terms of the 2,000 most frequent words were ‘Colors’, ‘Food and drink’, and ‘Countryside’,
wherein ‘Food and drink’ was displayed as the fifth most productive word. The third most productive prompts were ‘Clothes’
and ‘Means of transportation’ whereas ‘The city’ and ‘Animals’ retrieved the lowest number of responses in K1 and K2 dis-
tribution of the words related to the prompts.
The second research question aimed to determine whether learners’ lexical availability output would increase as the
number of hours of instruction increased. To answer this question, we compared the average word means obtained by two
groups of EFL learners with different number of hours of instruction: an incoming group (360 h), and an outgoing group
(700 h of English instruction plus 560 h of subject courses in English). Table 2 shows the descriptive statistics together with

Table 1
Descriptive statistics for each prompt.

Prompts Mean (SD) Median MineMax Word distribution in K1 & K2

Tokens/% Types/% Families

‘Parts of the body’ 13.76 (5.58) 14 5e34 868/74.89 47/52.81 32
‘Animals’ 11.39 (6.12) 11 4e50 369/40.32 20/22.22 16
‘School’ 11.12 (4.80) 10 4e23 822/88.87 116/78.91 97
‘Parts of the house’ 9.84 (3.12) 9 3e22 710/87.01 36/75 32
‘Clothes’ 9.79 (4.84) 9 1e35 488/60.85 34/53.13 29
‘Food and drink’ 9.75 (4.11) 10 4e22 512/61.53 42/42 38
‘The city’ 8.82 (3.94) 7 4e19 372/58.96 31/61.19 35
‘Colors’ 8.16 (2.25) 8 3e12 639/91.81 11/91.67 10
‘Means of transportation’ 7.31 (2.61) 6 4e15 375/58.96 41/61.19 35
‘Countryside’ 7.00 (3.92) 6 3e26 505/83.75 132/72.13 108
 I. Akbarian et al. / System 91 (2020) 102261 7

Table 2
Distribution of descriptive and inferential statistics per prompt for each group.

Prompts Student level N M SD T df Sig (2-tailed) d (effect size)

‘Parts of the body’ Incoming 54 11.56 4.48 5.60 83 .000 1.23
Outgoing 31 17.58 5.26
‘Clothes’ Incoming 54 8.31 3.66 4.03 83 .000 .85
Outgoing 31 12.35 5.58
Part of the house Incoming 54 9.13 2.88 2.92 83 .005 .65
Outgoing 31 11.10 3.19
‘Food and drink’ Incoming 54 8.35 3.67 4.63 83 .000 1.03
Outgoing 31 12.19 3.72
‘School’ Incoming 54 10.59 4.57 1.34 83 .184 .30
Outgoing 31 12.03 5.12
‘The city’ Incoming 54 7.33 2.73 4.69 43.63 .000 1.12
Outgoing 31 11.42 4.39
‘Countryside’ Incoming 54 6.22 3.55 2.49 83 .015 .55
Outgoing 31 8.35 4.22
‘Means of transportation’ Incoming 54 6.56 2.10 3.76 83 .000 .81
Outgoing 31 8.61 2.92
‘Animals’ Incoming 54 10.30 6.86 2.22 83 .029 .53
Outgoing 31 13.29 3.98
‘Colors’ Incoming 54 7.48 2.29 4.42 79.59 .000 .95
Outgoing 31 9.35 1.60

the results of the t-test (with Bonferroni correction set to 0.05/10 ¼ 0.005), applied to the means to determine the significance
of the results. Equal variances were assumed for all the prompts, except for ‘The city’ and ‘Colors’. As observed, the outgoing-
group learners, with more exposure to language produced a higher number of words for all the prompts. The highest dif-
ference was observed in ‘Parts of the body’, ‘Clothes’, and ‘Food and drink’. The lowest difference was for ‘Means of trans-
portation’ ‘Countryside’. The t-tests applied to the means, however, showed significant differences for most of the prompts,
except ‘School’, ‘Countryside’, and ‘Animals’. ‘Parts of the house’ approached significance at 0.005 alpha level. However, ac-
cording to Plonsky and Oswald (2014), the effect size was large for the prompts ‘Parts of the body’, ‘Food and drink’, and ‘The
city’, but ‘Colors’, ‘Clothes’, and ‘Means of transportation’ had a medium effect size. However, ‘Parts of the house’ with
approaching significance, ‘Countryside’, and ‘Animals’ without reaching significance level, had small effect sizes too, thus
calling for further research with equal sample sizes.
The quality of learners’ word responses in the lexical availability task was examined by means of the third research question
in which we posed whether the frequency profile of EFL learners would change as the amount of English instruction
increased. Table 3 indicates the existence of variation in the frequency of the word responses produced by the outgoing group,
compared with the incoming group. The variation is observed in the increase of word responses within all frequency bands. A
close look at the data reveals that the increase is similar in the number of types in K1 (6 types), K2 (8 types) and AWL (11
types), thus being particularly notorious the considerable increase of words in the Off-list words band (24 types).
Moreover, an independent-samples t-test was conducted to compare the number of word types retrieved for incoming
and outgoing groups. There was a significant difference in word types for incoming group (M ¼ 78.69, SD ¼ 23.81) and
outgoing group (M ¼ 106.58, SD ¼ 31.22; t (83) ¼ 4.632, p ¼ .000, two-tailed, eta squared ¼ 2.99). The d value, effect size, was
very large.
We now move on to the fourth research question that aimed at ascertaining whether there were similarities or differences
in the most frequent words produced by Iranian EFL learners at different amount of English instruction. Table 4 shows the five
most-frequently-retrieved words from highest to lowest availability output from left to right. The 50 words included in the
table correspond to the most frequent first word responses for each group. As can be observed, overall there were more
similarities than differences between the two groups. Similarities were found in the high number of shared words by the two
groups (in bold), exactly 66, almost double the non-shared words exclusive to each group (34 words). The highest number of
shared words were within ‘Food and drink, followed by ‘School’, ‘The city’, and ‘Countryside’, respectively with one and two
exclusive words for each group. In comparison, the higher number of exclusive or non-shared words to each group was found
in ‘Parts of the body’.
However, the distribution of all the words related to the prompts in K1 and K2 frequent words were not so similar, as
observed earlier. We also submitted the words in Table 4 to the Range software, revealing that 80, i.e., four-fifth, of these
words belonged to the top 2,000 most frequent words. This shows that, overall, the available lexicon of the two groups relied
mainly on K1 and K2 words.
The fifth research question posed whether there was a relationship between the receptive and productive vocabulary of EFL
learners, as assessed by the NVLT and lexical availability task. The means reported on the NVLT relate to the receptive aspect of
vocabulary knowledge. In comparison, the figures concerning the lexical availability task refer to the mean number of words
that the informants produced in response to the prompts. Likewise, it is important to call attention to the figures in Table 5
since they refer to the means obtained in the NVLT and the lexical availability task by Iranian EFL learners, without
considering the number of hours of exposure. Table 5 shows a higher mean of responses for tokens and a lower standard
8 I. Akbarian et al. / System 91 (2020) 102261

Table 3
Frequency band distribution of types for incoming and outgoing groups.

Group K1 K2 AWL Off-list words

Incoming 205 152 78 160
Outgoing 211 160 89 184

Table 4
The five top word responses distributed per prompt and group.

Prompt Level Word 1 Word 2 Word 3 Word 4 Word 5

‘Parts of the body’ Incoming Hand Head Foot Heart Lip
Outgoing Eye Finger Arm Leg Head
Food & drink Incoming Pizza Pasta Juice Milk Water
Outgoing Water Pasta Pizza Milk Rice
‘Clothes’ Incoming Pants Skirt T-shirt Socks Shoe
Outgoing T-shirt Skirt Pants Shoe Hat
‘Parts of the house’ Incoming Kitchen Living room Bedroom Bathroom Yard
Outgoing Kitchen Dining room Bathroom Bedroom Roof
‘School’ Incoming Teacher Book Pencil Pen Students
Outgoing Student Teacher Pen Book Table
‘Countryside’ Incoming Village Road River Farm Mountain
Outgoing Lake Village River Mountain Road
‘The city’ Incoming Park Street School People Hospital
Outgoing Street People School Park House
‘Means of transportation’ Incoming Car Bus Taxi Train Bicycle
Outgoing Bus Taxi Subway Plain Car
‘Animals’ Incoming Cat Lion Tiger Fish Dog
Outgoing Dog Cat Lion Bird Tiger
‘Colors’ Incoming Red Blue Black White Purple
Outgoing Brown Red Blue Yellow Green

Table 5
Profile of prompts (LA) and NVLT for Iranian EFL learners.

Mean SD N
NVLT 68.16 10.10 85
LA Tokens on all prompts 96.24 31.97 85
LA Types on all prompts 88.96 29.97 84

deviation for types, indicating more homogeneity in various words, or lexical diversity, than in repeated words. At this point,
it is also important to observe that the means of tokens and types reveal different aspects of the lexical availability output: the
percentages of tokens reveal a high degree of coincidence in the word responses provided by the learners. In contrast, the
percentages of types point to unique or different words produced by the learners.
To determine whether there were any significant differences between the receptive and productive vocabulary of the
incoming and outgoing students, assessed by the NVLT and lexical availability task, we ran a Pearson product-moment
correlation (Table 6). The analysis showed a correlation of r ¼ 0.56 (R2 ¼ 0.31) between the scores on the NVLT and tokens
of lexical availability task, and a correlation of r ¼ 0.51 (R2 ¼ 0.25) between the scores on the NVLT and types of lexical
availability task. Therefore, the scores on the NVLT explained 31% of the variance in lexical availability task for tokens and 25%
for types, and the other 69% for tokens and 75% for types included other factors.
To explain the results, Table 7 reveals a statistically significant correlation between the NVLT scores and the tokens and
types on each prompt p < .05 (see Table 1 for descriptive statistics). The highest and the lowest include ‘Clothes’ and ‘Food and
drink’, respectively. Unlike ‘School’, ‘Parts of the house’, and ‘Food and drink’ that have a small correlation, the other categories
show a moderate one. The very small strength of the relationships (R2) ranged between 0.04 and 0.15.

Table 6
Comparing NVLT with the types and tokens for all prompts in LA.

Tokens Types
NVLT Pearson Correlation .560** .506**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000
Sum of Squares and Cross-products 15187.541 12712.143
Covariance 180.804 153.158
N 85 85
 I. Akbarian et al. / System 91 (2020) 102261 9

Table 7
Comparing NVLT, tokens, types on each prompt in LA.

Prompts Pearson correlation Sig. (2-tailed) R2 N

‘Parts of the body’ Tokens .372** .000 .10 85
Types .415** .000 .17
‘Clothes’ Tokens .394** .000 .15 85
Types .468** .000 .22
‘Parts of the house’ Tokens .275* .011 .07 85
Types .088 .423 .08
‘Food and drink’ Tokens .257* .017 .07 85
Types .255* .019 .07
‘School’ Tokens .283** .009 .04 85
Types .087 .429 .01
‘The city’ Tokens .331** .002 .11 85
Types .372** .002 .14
‘Countryside’ Tokens .392** .000 .15 85
Types .419** .000 .18
‘Means of transportation’ Tokens 338** .002 .11 85
Types .334** .002 .11
‘Animals’ Tokens .358** .001 .12 85
Types .392** .000 .15
‘Colors’ Tokens .368** .001 .13 85
Types .380** .000 .14

*p < .05. **p < .01.

Moreover, the comparison of the NVLT means and the means of types, or the different words, produced by learners in
response to each of the 10 prompts in the LA also reveals that there is a relation between the two. However, as Table 7 above
shows, the relation seems to depend on the specific prompt; except for ‘Parts of the house’ and ‘School’ (p > .05), the cor-
relation between the scores on the NVLT and the number of types on other categories is significant, with a large correlation for
‘Clothes’. The categories of ‘Parts of the body’, ‘Countryside’, ‘Animals’, ‘Colors’ ‘The city’, and ‘Means of transportation’
showed a moderate correlation between the NVLT scores and types of lexical availability task. There was also a small cor-
relation for ‘Food and drink’. The strength of the relationship between the NVLT scores and types in each prompt (R2 ranged
between 0.00 and 0.21) is very small.

5. Discussion

Results show that lexical availability output depends on the prompt used to activate word production. Iranian EFL learners
showed the highest lexical output in response to ‘Parts of the body’, ‘Animals’, and ‘School’, and much lower output in
response to ‘Countryside’ and ‘Means of transportation’. In this respect, our results are consistent with previous research,
where the existence of most and least productive prompts has been recurrently reported both in English and in Spanish as
foreign languages. Moreover, there is some coincidence regarding the most and least productive prompts. For example, ‘Parts
of the body’ was among the most productive prompts in the lexical availability of Chilean EFL learners (Ferreira & Echeverría,
2014) and Spanish and Chinese EFL learners (Martínez-Adri
an & Gallardo del Puerto, 2016). Similarly, ‘Animals’ and ‘School’
generated the highest number of word responses in lexical availability studies with EFL learners at primary, secondary, post-

secondary, and tertiary education (Sifrar Kalan, 2009, 2014; Martínez-Adri
an & Gallardo del Puerto, 2016; Canga, 2017).
‘Countryside’ and ‘Professions’, the least productive in our study, confirm the results of the study conducted by Canga (2017)
on the lexical availability of 12th form EFL learners. With respect to ‘Countryside’, our results also coincide with the ones
obtained by Martínez-Adria
n and Gallardo del Puerto (2016) on the lexical availability of Spanish and Chinese EFL learners at
university. The coincidence of results in different educational levels and countries might be interpreted on the grounds of
greater exposure to some semantic fields than others. ‘Parts of the body’, ‘Animals’, and ‘School’ may be considered as uni-
versal issues, in the sense that they refer to daily and human realities experienced by learners worldwide. These semantic
fields are probably among the first ones to be taught to beginners in foreign languages. In comparison, ‘Countryside’ might
vary considerably depending on regions, countries, languages, and cultures. Consequently, EFL learners might be less exposed
to this semantic field which may be less present in the input for language learning and teaching. Some evidence in this regard
is found in the research conducted by Canga and Cifone (2016) on the cultural vocabulary of textbooks of EFL learners, and its
correspondence with the learners’ lexical availability output in response to cultural words such as ‘Countryside’. They re-
ported scarce representation of this semantic field in the textbooks that their sample of EFL learners had been exposed to.
Concerning the relation of exposure and lexical availability output, the increase in the number of hours of instruction
explained the variation found in lexical production of the outgoing group in comparison with the incoming group. This
finding suggests that as the number of hours of English instruction increases, vocabulary production increases significantly.
However, the increase does not seem to be equally distributed across all semantic categories as learners produced more words
in response to some prompts and less to other prompts. For instance, the highest difference between the two groups was
found in ‘Parts of the body’, ‘Clothes’, and ‘Food and drink’. This finding keeps some resemblance to the results obtained by El-
10 I. Akbarian et al. / System 91 (2020) 102261

Dakhs (2017) and Moreno Espinosa (2009), who reported a significant increase of the number of words retrieved in asso-
ciation tasks but not in the patterns of word association throughout time. However, the results in the present study revealed
variation both in the number of words and in the frequency profiles of learners’ word responses. We observed how the group
with more hours of English instruction produced a higher number of word types in all frequency bands, particularly in the Off-
list band. According to Read (2000), the production and use of more word types is related to vocabulary richness. Thus, we
could interpret the increase of word types in the Off-list band, as evidence of higher vocabulary level and richness, and as a
result of the outgoing group having received more hours of English instruction. In this regard, this study reveals similar
patterns to the ones observed in previous research on the frequency profiles of lexical availability of Spanish secondary school
EFL learners (see Jime
nez Catal

an & Fitzpatrick, 2014), where the highest variation was found within ‘Off-list band’. The
similarity of findings suggests that the increase of hours of exposure to the target language provides learners with more
opportunities to encounter more infrequent words. However, caution should be taken in this interpretation, as in Spanish EFL
learners, the increase was almost equal for the ‘K1 band’ and the ‘Off-list’ band’, whereas in the present study, Iranian EFL
leaners showed the highest increase in the ‘Off-list band’.
Finally, this study explored the relation between the English receptive and productive vocabulary of incoming and out-
going EFL learners as assessed by the NVLT test and a lexical availability task. Our results provide evidence of the existence of a
moderate but significant correlation between the learners’ scores on the NVLT and the words (tokens) produced in the lexical
availability task. As, to our knowledge, this is the first study to correlate the NVLT and a lexical availability task, we do not have
a reference for comparison. However, with caution, we could delve into the research conducted by Jime
nez Catala
n (2010),
where a positive relationship was found among receptive vocabulary as measured by VLT, and productive vocabulary
knowledge as measured by LEX30, a composition, and a lexical availability task accomplished by primary school EFL learners
with Spanish as L1. The present study extends this research, by providing evidence of the relationship of the NVLT and the
lexical availability output of Iranian EFL learners. These results were obtained with a sample of EFL learners at tertiary ed-
ucation, thus providing some evidence of universal tendencies in the lexical availability performance of EFL learners. Like-
wise, the relationship of the NVLT and a lexical availability task provides further evidence of the potential of the lexical
availability task to measure productive vocabulary.

6. Conclusion

The findings of the present study provide relevant information on the lexical availability output and receptive vocabulary
knowledge of EFL learners. The study showed that the prompts used in lexical availability task and the amount of instructional
exposure had a significant effect on learners’ lexical output. This study also showed the existence of a moderate but significant
relationship between the lexical availability output of EFL learners and their receptive vocabulary knowledge. These findings
have implications for L2 lexical availability and vocabulary research as well as for foreign language education. Firstly, the great
coincidence of the most and least productive prompts in Iranian EFL learners to those found in studies conducted with
Spanish and Chinese EFL learners point to a similar distribution of semantic domains in the available lexicon of EFL learners in
distant countries such as China, Chile, Slovenia, Iran, Spain or Spaniards in the United States. Furthermore, in all cases, in EFL
learners’ lexical availability, it was found that learners’ most frequent words fell into the 2,000 and Off-list bands. Thus, in the
light of common findings we can predict that EFL learners may be exposed to the same semantic domains and similar vo-
cabulary input through the textbooks and teaching materials in different countries and educational levels. This prediction
warrants further research. Secondly, the increase of the number of words and particularly, Off-list words, calls for further
research. More words mean lexical richness or variety. Therefore, fresh research will test the effect of the increase of hours of
exposure on the quality of the words produced by EFL learners in lexical availability tasks with large samples of EFL learners at
different language learning contexts, and different ages, language levels, and mother tongues.
Likewise, research is needed to value the potential of the lexical availability task as a diagnostic test of vocabulary
knowledge. The significant correlation found in this study between lexical availability and receptive vocabulary knowledge
suggests that the EFL learners’ productive and receptive vocabulary are related. However, this study was based on a small
sample of EFL learners and there was a lack of control group. Thus, this finding is only limited to the specific sample. To
generalize the finding, further studies are necessary including large samples of learners from different countries. Likewise,
exploration of the prompts to be included in lexical availability tasks as to represent the semantic fields suggested by the
Common Reference for Languages (CEFR), and their correspondence between the NVLT and lexical availability tasks would
expand our knowledge of the relation of receptive and productive vocabulary of EFL learners worldwide.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Is’haaq Akbarian: Conceptualization, Software, Writing - original draft, Methodology, Formal analysis, Writing - review &
editing, Supervision. Fatemeh Farajollahi: Conceptualization, Writing - original draft, Methodology. Rosa María Jime
nez
Catala
n: Formal analysis, Writing - review & editing.
 I. Akbarian et al. / System 91 (2020) 102261 11

Acknowledgements

Sincere thanks are due to the students participating in this study with patience, generosity, and commitment. We are also
grateful to the editors and the two anonymous external reviewers for their patience, care, and constructive comments. The
collaboration of the third author was carried out under the framework of research project granted by the Spanish Ministry of
Science and Competitiveness, Grant FFI 2013-47707-P.

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